Chapter VI: Part II: Nur für Schwindelfreie (2)

Man comes to the pass where all experience seems exhausted. Wherever he go, whatever he see, all is old and wearyingly familiar. Most people explain this by saying that they really know everything, and that from what they have experienced they can infer all experience. This phase of the exhaustion of life usually comes to a man between thirty-five and forty--the best period, according to Karamzin. Not seeing anything new, the individual assumes he is completely matured and has the right to judge of everything. Knowing what has been he can forecast what will be. But Karamzin was mistaken about the best period, and the "mature" people are mistaken about the "nothing new can happen." The fact of spiritual stagnation should not be made the ground for judging all life's possibilities from known possibilities. On the contrary, such stagnation should prove that however rich and multifarious the past may have been, it has not exhausted a tittle of the whole possibilities. From that which has been it is impossible to infer what will be. Moreover, it is unnecessary--except, perhaps, to give us a sense of our full maturity and let us enjoy all the charms of the best period of life, so eloquently described by Karamzin. The temptation is not overwhelming. So that, if man is under the necessity of enduring a period of arrest and stagnation, and until such time as life re-starts is doomed to meditation, would it not be better to use this meditating _interregnum_ for a directly opposite purpose from the one indicated: that is to say, for the purpose of finding in our past signs which tell us that the future has every right to be anything whatsoever, like or utterly unlike the past. Such signs, given a good will to find them, may be seen in plenty. At times one comes to the conclusion that the natural connection of phenomena, as hitherto observed, is not at all inevitable for the future, and that miracles which so far have seemed impossible, may come to seem possible, even natural, far more natural than that loathsome law of sequence, the law of the regularity of phenomena. We are bored stiff with regularity and sequence--confess it, you also, you men of science. At the mere thought that, however we may think, we can get no further than the acknowledgment of the old regularity, an invincible disgust to any kind of mental work overcomes us. To discover another law--still another--when already we have far more than we can do with! Surely if there is any will-to-think left in us, it is established in the supposition that the mind cannot and must not have any bounds, any limits; and that the theory of knowledge, which is based on the _history_ of knowledge and on a few very doubtful assumptions, is only a piece of property belonging to a certain caste, and has nothing to do with us others_--und die Natur zuletzt sich doch ergründe._ What a mad impatience seizes us at times when we realise that we shall never fathom the great mystery! Every individual in the world must have felt at one time the mad desire to unriddle the universe. Even the stodgy philosophers who invented the theory of knowledge have at times made surreptitious sorties, hoping to open a path to the unknown, in spite of their own fat, senseless books that demonstrate the advantages of scientific knowledge. Man either lives in continuous experience, or he frees himself from conclusions imposed by limited experience. All the rest is the devil. From the devil come the blandishments with which Karamzin charmed himself and his readers.... Or is it the contrary? Who will answer! Once again, as usual, at the end of a pathetic speech one is left with a conjecture. Let every man please himself. But what about those who would like to live according to Karamzin, but cannot? I cannot speak for them. Schiller recommended hope. Will it do? To be frank, hardly. He who has once lost his peace of mind will never find it again.

17

Ever since Kant succeeded in convincing the learned that the world of phenomena is quite other than the world of true reality, and that even our own existence is not our real existence, but only the visible manifestation of a mysterious, unknown substance (substantia)--philosophy has been stuck in a new rut, and cannot move a single millimetre out of the track laid out by the great Königsbergian. Backward or forward it can go, but necessarily in the Kantian rut. For how can you get out of the counterposing of the phenomenon against the thing-in-itself? This proposition, this counterposing seems inalterable, so there is nothing left but to stick your head in the heavy draught-collar of the theory of knowledge. Which most philosophers do, even with a glad smile, which inevitably rouses a suspicion that they have got what they wanted, and their "metaphysical need" was nothing more than a need for a harness. Otherwise they would have kicked at the sight of the collar. Surely the contraposition between the world of phenomena and the thing-in-itself is an invention of the reasoning mind, as is the theory of knowledge deduced from this contraposing. Therefore the freedom-loving spirit could reject it in the very beginning--and _basta!_ With the devil one must be very cautious. We know quite well that if he only gets hold of the tip of your ear he will carry off your whole body. So it is with Reason. Grant it one single assumption, admit but one proposition--and _finita la commedia_. You are in the toils. Metaphysics cannot exist side-by-side with reason. Everything metaphysical is absurd, everything reasonable is--positive. So we come upon a dilemma. The fundamental predicate of metaphysics is absurdity: and yet surely many positive assertions can lay legitimate claim to that self-same, highly-respectable predicate. What then? Is there means of distinguishing a metaphysical absurdity from a perfectly ordinary one? May one have recourse to criteria? Will not the very criterion prove a pitfall wherein cunning reason will catch the poor man who was rushing out to freedom? There can be no two answers to this question. All services rendered by reason must be paid for sooner or later at the exorbitant price of self-renunciation. Whether you accept the assistance in the noble form of the theory of knowledge, or merely as a humble criterion, at last you will be driven forth into the streets of positivism. This happens all the time to young, inexperienced minds. They break the bridle and dash forward into space, to find themselves rushing into the same old Rome, whither, as we know, all roads lead: or, to use more lofty language, rushing into the stable whither also all roads lead. The only way to guard against positivism--granting, of course, that positivism no longer attracts your sympathies--is to cease to fear any absurdities, whether rational or metaphysical, and systematically to reject all the services of reason. Such behaviour has been known in philosophy; and I make bold to recommend it. _Credo, quia absurdum_ comes from the Middle Ages. Modern instances are Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Both present noble examples of indifference to logic and common-sense: particularly Schopenhauer, who, a Kantian, even in the name of Kant made such daring sallies against reason, driving her into confusion and shame. That astounding Kantian even went so far, in the master's name still, as to attempt the overthrow of the space and time notions. He admitted clairvoyance--and to this day the learned are bothered whether to class that admission among the metaphysical or the ordinary absurdities. Really, I can't advise them. A very clever man insists on an enormous absurdity, so I am satisfied. Schopenhauer's whole campaign against intellect is very comforting. It is evident that, though he set out from the Kantian stable, he soon got sick of hauling along down the cart-ruts, and having broken the shafts, he trotted jauntily into a jungle of irreconcilable contradictions, without reflecting in the least where he was making for. The primate of will over reason; and music as the expression of our deepest essence; are not these assertions sufficient to show us how dexterously he wriggled out from the harness of synthetic judgments _a priori_ which Kant had placed upon every thinker. There is indeed much more music than logic in the philosophy of Schopenhauer; Not for nothing is he excluded from the universities. But of course one may speak of him in the open; not of his ideas, naturally, but of his music. The European market is glutted with ideas. How neat and nicely-finished and logically well-turned-out those ideas are. Schopenhauer had no such goods. But what lively and splendid contradictions he boldly spreads on his stall, often even without suspicion that he ought to hide them from the police. Schopenhauer cries and laughs and gets furious or glad, without ever realising that this is forbidden to a philosopher. "Do not speak, but sing," said Zarathustra, and Schopenhauer ready fulfilled the command in great measure. Philosophy may be music--though it doesn't follow that music may be called philosophy. When a man has done his work, and gives himself up to looking and listening and pleasantly accepting everything, hiding nothing from himself, then he begins to "philosophise." What good are abstract formulae to him? Why should he ask himself, before he begins to think: "What can I think about, what are the limits of thought?" He will think, and those who like can do the summing up and the building of theories of knowledge. What is the earthly use of talking about beauty? Beautiful things must be created. Not one single aesthetic theory has so far been able to guess what direction the artists' mind will next take, or what are the limits to his creative activity. The same with the theory of knowledge. It may arrest the work of a man of learning, if he be himself afraid that he is going too far, but it is powerless to pre-determine human thought. Even Kant's counterposing of things-in-themselves to the world of phenomena cannot finally clip the wings of human curiosity. There will come a time when this unshakeable foundation of positivism will be shaken. All gnosiological disputes as to what thought can or cannot achieve will seem to our posterity just as amusing as the disputes of the schoolmen seem to us. "Why did they argue about the nature of truth, when they might have gone out and looked for truth itself?" the future historians will ask. Let us have an answer ready for them. Our contemporaries do not want to go out and seek, so they make a great deal of talk about a theory of knowledge.

"Trust not thyself, young dreamer."--However sincerely you may long for truth, whatever sufferings and horrors you may have surpassed, do not believe your own self, young dreamer. What you are looking for, you won't find. At the utmost, if you have a gift for writing you will bring out a nice original book. Even--do not be offended--you may be satisfied with such a result. In Nietzsche's letters relating to the year 1888, the year when Brandes discovered him, you will find a sad confirmation of the above. Had not Nietzsche struggled, sought, suffered?--and behold, towards the end of his life, when it would have seemed that all mundane rewards had become trivial to him, he threw himself with rapture on the tidings of first fame, and rushed to share his joy with all his friends, far and near. He does not tire of telling in dozens of letters and in varying forms the story of how Brandes first began his lectures on him, Nietzsche, how the audience consisted of three hundred people, and he even quotes Brandes' placard announcement in the original Danish. Fame just threw him a smile, and forgotten are all the horrible experiences of former days. The loneliness, the desertedness, the cave in the mountain, the man into whose mouth the serpent climbed--all forgotten, every thought turned to the ordinary, easily-comprehensible good. Such is man.

_Mit gier'ger Hand nach Schätzen gräbt_
_Und froh ist wenn er Regenwürmer findet_.

19

When a man is young he writes because it seems to him he has discovered a new almighty truth which he must make haste to impart to forlorn mankind. Later, becoming more modest, he begins to doubt his truths: and then he writes to convince himself. A few more years go by, and he knows he was mistaken all round, so there is no need to convince himself. Nevertheless he continues to write, because he is not fit for any other work, and to be accounted a "superfluous" man is so horrible.

20

A very original man is often a banal writer, and vice versa. We tend so often to write not about what is going on in us, but of our _pia desideria_. Thus restless, sleepless men sing the glory of sleep and rest, which have long been sung to death. And those who sleep ten hours on end and are always up to the mark must perforce dream about adventures and storms and dangers, and even extol everything problematical.

21

When one reads the books of long-dead men, a strange sensation comes over one. These men who lived two hundred, three hundred, three thousand years ago are so far off now from this writing which they have left on earth. Yet we look for eternal truths in their works.

22

The truth which I have the right to announce so solemnly to-day, even to the first among men, will probably be a stale old lie on my lips to-morrow. So I will deprive myself of the right of calling such a truth my own. Probably I shall deprive no one but myself: others will go on loving and praising the self-same truth, living with it.

23

A writer who cannot lie with inspiration--and that is a great art, which few may accomplish--loves to make an exhibition of honesty and frankness. Nothing else is left him to do.

24

_The source of originality_.--A man who has lost all hope of rooting out of himself a certain radical defect of character, or even of hiding the flaw from others, turns round and tries to find in his defect a pertain merit. If he succeeds in convincing his acquaintances, he achieves a double gain: first, he quiets his conscience, and then he acquires a reputation for being original.

25

Men begin to strive towards great ends when they feel they cannot cope with the little tasks of life. They often have their measure of success.

26

A belch interrupts the loftiest meditation. You may draw a conclusion if you like: if you don't like, you needn't.

27

_A woman of conviction_.--We forgive a man his "convictions," however unwillingly. It goes without saying that we balk at any individual who believes in his own infallibility, but one must reconcile oneself with necessity. It is ugly and preposterous to have corns on one's hands, but still, they can't be avoided in this unparadisal earth of sweat and labour. But why see an ideal in callosities? In practical life, particularly in the social political life to which we are doomed, convictions are a necessity. Unity is strength, and unity is possible only among people who think alike. Again, a deep conviction is in itself a strong force, far more powerful than the most logical argumentation. Sometimes one has only to pronounce in a full, round, vibrating chest voice, such as is peculiar to people of conviction, some trifling sentence, and an audience hitherto unconvinced is carried away. Truth is often dumb, particularly a new truth, which is most shy of people, and which has a feeble, hoarse voice. But in certain situations that which will influence the crowd is more important than that which is genuine truth. Convictions are necessary to a public man; but he who is too clever to believe in himself entirely, and is not enough of an actor to look as if he believed, he had best give up public work altogether. At the same time he will realise that lack of convictions is not profitable, and will look with more indulgence on such as are bound to keep themselves well supplied. Yet all the more will he dislike those men who without any necessity disfigure themselves with the coarse tattoo marks. And particularly he will object to such women. What can be more intolerable than a woman of conviction. She lives in a family, without having to grind for her daily bread--why disfigure herself? Why wilfully rub her hands into corns, when she might keep them clean and pretty! Women, moreover, usually pick up their convictions ready-made from the man who interests them most at the moment. And never do they do this so vigorously as when the man himself seems incapable of paving the way to his ideas! They are full of feeling for him; they rush to the last extremities of resource. Will not their feeble little fists help him? It may be touching, but in the end it is intolerable. So it is much pleasanter to meet a woman who believes in her husband and does not consider it necessary to help him. She can then dispense with convictions.

28

_Emancipation of women_.--The one and only way of mastering an enemy is to learn the use of his weapons. Starting from this, modern woman, weary of being the slave of man, tries to learn all his tricks. Hard is slavery, wonderful is freedom! Slavery at last is so unendurable that a human being will sacrifice, everything for freedom. Of what use are his virtues to a prisoner languishing in prison? He has one aim, one object--to get out of prison, and he values only such qualities in himself as will assist his escape. If it is necessary to break an iron grating by physical force, then strong muscles will seem to the prisoner the most desirable of all things. If cunning will help him, cunning is the finest thing on earth. Something the same happens with woman. She became convinced that man owed his priority chiefly to education and a trained mind, so she threw herself on books and universities. Learning that promises freedom is light, everything else darkness. Of course, it is a delusion, but you could never convince her of it, for that would mean the collapse of her best hopes of freedom. So that in the end woman will be as well-informed as man, she will furnish herself with broad views and unshakeable convictions, with a philosophy also--and in the end she may even learn to think logically. Then, probably, the many misunderstandings between the sexes will cease. But heavens, how tedious it will be! Men will argue, women will argue, children will probably be born fully instructed, understanding everything. With what pain will the men of the future view our women, capricious, frivolous, uninformed creatures, understanding nothing and desiring to understand nothing. A whole half of the human race neither would nor could have any understanding! But the hope lies there. Maybe we can do without understanding. Perhaps a logical mind is not an attribute, but a curse. In the struggle for existence, however, and the survival of the fittest, not a few of the best human qualities have perished. Obviously woman's illogicality is also destined to disappear. It is a thousand pities.

29

All kinds of literature are good, except the tedious, said Voltaire. We may enlarge the idea. All men and all activities are good, except the tedious. Whatever your failings and your vices, if you are only amusing or interesting all is forgiven you. Accordingly, frankness and naturalness are quite rightly considered doubtful virtues. If people say that frankness and naturalness are virtues, always take it _cum grano salis_. Sometimes it is permissible and even opportune to fire off truth of all sorts. Sometimes one may stretch oneself like a log across the road. But God forbid that such sincere practices should be raised into a principle. To out with the truth at all times, always to reveal oneself entirely, besides being impossible to accomplish, never having been accomplished even in the confessions of the greatest men, is moreover a far more risky business than it seems. I can confidently assert that if any man tried to tell the whole truth about himself, not metaphorically, for every metaphor is a covering ornament, but in plain bare words, that man would ruin himself for ever, for he would lose all interest in the eyes of his neighbours, and even in his own eyes. Each of us bears in his soul a heavy wound, and knows it, yet carries himself, _must_ carry himself as if he were aware of nothing, while all around keep up the pretence. Remember Lermontov:

_Look! around you, playfully_
_The crowd moves on the usual road_.
_Scarce a mark of trouble on the festive faces_,
_Not one indecent tear_!
_And yet is barely one amongst them_
_But is crushed by heavy torture_,
_Or has gathered the wrinkles of young age_
_Save from crime or loss_.

These words are horribly true--and the really horrible should be concealed, it frightens one off. I admit, Byron and Lermontov could make it alluring. But all that is alluring depends on vagueness, remoteness. Any monster may be beautiful in the distance. And no man can be interesting unless he keep a certain distance between himself and people. Women do not understand this. If they like a man, they try to come utterly near to him, and are surprised that he does not meet their frankness with frankness, and admit them to his holy of holies. But in the innermost sanctuary the only beauty is inaccessibility. As a rule it is not a sanctuary but a lair where the wounded beast in man has run to lick his wounds. And shall this be done in public? People generally, and women particularly, ought to be given something positive. In books one may still sing the praise of wounds, hopelessness, and despair--whatever you like, for books are still literature, a conventionality. But to strip one's anguish in the open market, to confess an incurable disease to others, this is to kill one's soul, not to relieve it. All, even the best men, have some aversion for you. Perhaps in the interest of order and decorum they will grant you a not-too-important place in their philosophy of life. For in a philosophy of life, as in a cemetery, a place is prepared for each and all, and everyone is welcome. There also are enclosures where rubbish is dumped to rot. But for those who have as yet no desire to be fitted into a world-philosophy, I would advise them to keep their tongue between their teeth, or like Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, take to literature. To a writer, in books and only in books, all is permitted provided he has talent. But in actual living even a writer must not let loose too much, lest people should guess that in his books he is telling the truth.

30

Poushkin asserts that the poet himself can and must be the judge of his own work. "Are you content, exacting artist? Content, then let the mob revile." It is needless to argue against this, for how could you prove that the supreme verdict belongs not to the poet himself, but to public opinion? Nor, for that matter, can we prove Poushkin right. We must agree or disagree, as we like. But we cannot reject the evidence. Whether you like it or not, Poushkin was evidently satisfied with his own work, and did not need his reader's sanction. Happy man! And it seems to me he owed his happiness exclusively to his inability to pass beyond certain limits. I doubt-if all poets would agree to repeat Poushkin's verse quoted above. I decidedly refuse to believe that Shakespeare, for instance, after finishing _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_ could have said to himself: "I, who judge my work more strictly than any other can judge, am satisfied." I do not think he can even have thought for a moment of the merits of his works, _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_. To Shakespeare, after Hamlet, the word "satisfied" must have lost all its meaning, and if he used it, it was only by force of habit, as we sometimes call to a dead person. His own works must have seemed to him imperfect, mean, pitiful, like the sob of a child or the moaning of a sick man. He gave them to the theatre, and most probably was surprised that they had any success. Perhaps he was glad that his tears were of some use, if only for amusing and instructing people. And probably in this sense the verdict of the crowd was dearer to him than his own verdict. He could not help accusing his own offspring--thank heaven, other people acquitted it. True, they acquitted it because they did not understand, or understood imperfectly, but this did not matter. "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape a whipping?" asked Hamlet. Shakespeare knew that a strict tribunal would reject his works: for they contain so many terrible questions, and not one perfect answer. Could anyone be "satisfied" at that rate? Perhaps with _Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night_, or even _Richard III_.--but after _Hamlet_ a man may find rest only in his grave. To speak the whole truth, I doubt if Poushkin himself maintained the view we have quoted till the end of his days, or even if he spoke all he felt when he wrote the poem in 1830. Possibly he felt how little a poet can be satisfied with his work, but pride prevented his admitting it, and he tried to console himself with his superiority over the crowd. Which is undeniably a right thing to do. Insults--and Poushkin had to endure many--are answered with contempt; and woe to the poor wretch who feels impelled to justify his contempt by his own merits, according to the stern voice of conscience. Such niceness is dangerous and unnecessary. If a man would preserve his strength and his confidence he must give up magnanimity, he must learn to despise people, and even if he cannot despise them he must have the air of one who would not give a pin's head for anybody. He must appear always content. ... Poushkin was a clever man and a deep nature.

31

_Metaphysics against their will_.--It often occurs to us that evil is not altogether so, unnecessary, after all. Diseases, humiliations, miseries, deformity, failure, and all the rest of those plants which flourish with such truly tropical luxuriance on our planet, are probably essential to man. Poets sing plentifully of sorrow.

"_Nous sommes les apprentis, la douleur est notre maître_," said de Musset. On this subject everybody can bring forth a quotation, not only from the philosophers, who are a cold, heartless tribe, but from tender, gentle, or sentimental poets. Doubtless one knows many instances where suffering has profited a man. True also, one knows many cases of the direct opposite. And these are all cases of profound, earnest, outrageous, incredibly outrageous suffering. Look at Tchekhov's men and women--plainly drawn from life, or at any rate, exceedingly life-' like. Uncle Vanya, an old man of fifty, cries beside himself all over the stage, "My life is done for, my life is done for," and senselessly shoots at a harmless professor. The hero in _A Tedious Story_ was a quiet, happy man engaged in work of real importance, when suddenly a horrible disease stole upon him, not killing him, but taking him between its loathsome jaws. But what for? Then Tchekhov's girls and women! They are mostly young, innocent, fascinating. And always there lies in wait for them round every corner a meaningless, rude, ugly misery which murders even the most modest hopes. They sob bitterly, but fate takes no notice. How explain such horrors? Tchekhov is silent. He does not weep himself--he left off long ago, and besides it is a humiliating thing for a grown-up person to do. Setting one's teeth, it is necessary either to keep silent or--to explain. Well, metaphysics under takes the explanation. Where common sense stops, metaphysics must take another stride. "We have seen," it says, "many instances where at first glance suffering seemed absurd and needless, but where later on a profound significance was revealed. Thus it may be that what we cannot explain may find its explanation in time. 'Life is lost,' cries Uncle Vanya, 'Life is done for,' repeat the voices of girls innocently perishing--yet nothing is lost. The very horror which a drowning man experiences goes to show that the drowning is nothing final. It is only the beginning of greater events. The less a man has fulfilled in experience, the more in him remains of unsatisfied passion and desire, the greater are the grounds for thinking that his essence cannot be destroyed, but must manifest itself somehow or other in the universe. Voluntary asceticism and self-denial, such common human phenomena, help to solve the riddle. Nobody compels a man, he imposes suffering and abstinence on himself. It is an incomprehensible instinct, but still an instinct which, rooted in the depths of our nature, prompts us to a decision repugnant to reason: renounce life, save yourself. The majority of men do not hear or do not heed the prompting. And then nature, which cannot rely on our sensibility, has recourse to violence. She shows glimpses of Paradise to us in our youth, awakens hopes and impossible desires, and at the moment of our supreme expectation she shows us the hollowness of our hope. Nearly every life can be summed up in a few words: man was shown heaven--and thrown into the mud. We are all ascetics--voluntary or involuntary. Here on earth dreams and hopes are only awakened, not fulfilled. And he who has endured most suffering, most privation, will awaken in the afterwards most keenly alive." Such long speeches metaphysics whispers to us. And we repeat them, often leaving out the "it may be." Sometimes we believe them, and forge our philosophies from them. Even we go so far as to assert that had we the power we would change nothing, absolutely nothing in the world. And yet, if by some miracle such power came into our hands, how triumphantly we would send to the devil all philosophies and lofty world-conceptions, all ideals and metaphysics, and plainly and simply, without reflection, abolish sufferings, deformities, failures, all those things to which we attach such a high educational value, abolish them from the face of the earth. We are fed up, oh, how fed up we are with carrying on our studies. But it can't be helped. _Faute de mieux,_ let us keep on inventing systems, thinking them out. But let us agree not to be cross with those who don't want to have anything to do with our systems. Really, they have a perfect right.

32

Old age must be respected--so all say, even the old. And the young willingly meet the demand. But in such spontaneous, even often emphatic respect, is there not something insulting to old age. Every young man, by his voluntary deference, seems to say: "And still the rising star shines brighter than the setting." And the old, accepting the respect, are well aware that they can count on nothing more. The young are attentive and respectful to the old only upon the express condition that the latter shall behave like old people, and stand aside from life. Let a real man try to follow Faust's example, and what a shindy there will be! The old, being as a rule helpless, are compelled to bow to public opinion and behave as if their only interests were the interests of righteousness, good name, and such-like Platonic attributes. Only a few go against the convention, and these are monsters and degenerates. We do not wish old men to have desires, so that life is arranged as if old men desired nothing. This, of course, is no great matter: even the young are compelled to be satisfied with less than nothing, in our system. We are not out to meddle with human rights. Our point is that science and philosophy take enforced appearances for reality. Grey hair is supposed to be a sure sign of victory over the passions. Hence, seeing that we must all come to grey hairs, therefore the ultimate business of man is to overcome the passions.... On this granite foundation whole systems of philosophy are built. It is not worth while quarrelling with a custom--let us continue to pay respect to old age. But let us look in other directions for philosophic bases. It is time to open a free road to the passions even in the province of metaphysics.

33

_Dostoevsky_--_advocatus diaboli_.--Dostoevsky, like Nietzsche, disliked Protestantism, and tried every means of degrading it in the eyes of the world. As normally he was not over scrupulous, it is probable he never took the trouble to acquaint himself with Luther's teaching. His flair did not deceive him: the Protestant religion and morality was most unsuitable to him and his kind. But does this mean that it was to be calumniated, and judged, as Dostoevsky judged it, merely by the etymological meaning of a word? Protestant--a protester, one who only protests and has no positive content. A child's text-book of history will show the absurdity of the definition. Protestantism is, on the whole, the most positive, _assertive_ creed of all the Christian religions. It certainly protested against Catholicism, but against the destructive tendencies in the latter, and in the name of positive ideals. Catholicism relied too much on its power and its spell, and most of all on the infallibility of its dogmas to which it offered millions of victims. To maim and mutilate a man _ad majorem gloriam Dei_ was considered a perfectly proper thing in the Middle Ages, the period of bloom for Catholicism. At the risk of appearing paradoxical, I venture to assert that ideas have been invented only for the purpose of giving the right to mutilate people. The Middle Ages nourished a mysterious, incomprehensible hatred for everything normal, self-satisfied, complete. A young, healthy, handsome man, at peace with himself, aroused suspicion and hostility in a believing Catholic. His very appearance offended religion and confuted dogma. It was not necessary to examine him. Even though he went to church, and gave no sign of doubt, either in deed or word, yet he must be a heretic, to be converted at all cost. And we know the Catholic cost: privation, asceticism, mortification of the flesh. The most normal person, kept on a monastic regime, will lose his spiritual balance, and all those virtues which belong to a healthy spirit and a healthy body. This was all Catholicism needed. It tried to obtain from people the _extreme endeavour_ of their whole being. Ordinary, natural love, which found its satisfaction--this was sinful. Monks and priests were condemned to celibacy--hence monstrous and abnormal passions developed. Poverty was preached, and the most unheard-of greed appeared in the world, the more secret the stronger it became. Humility was essential--and out of bare-footed monks sprang despots who had no limits to their ambitions. Luther was the last man to understand the meaning and value of the tasks which Catholicism had set itself. What he saw in Rome was not the accidental outcome of this or the other historical circumstance, but a result of the age-long effort of generations that had striven to attribute to life as alarming and dangerous a nature as possible. The sincere, direct, rustic German monk was too simple-minded to make out what was going on in Rome. He thought there existed one truth, and that the essence of Catholicism lay in what seemed to him an exemplary, virtuous life. He went direct to his aim? What meaning can monasticism have? Why deprive a priest of family happiness? How accept the licentiousness of the pope's capital? The common sense of the normal German revolted against the absurdity of such a state of things--and Luther neither could nor _would_ see any good where common sense was utterly forgotten. The violent oscillation of life resulting from the continuous quick passage from asceticism and blind faith to unbelief and freedom of the passions aroused a mystic horror in the honest monk and released the enormous powers in him necessary to start the great struggle. How could he help protesting? And who was the denier, Luther, or the Rome which passed on from the keeping of the Divine Word to the arbitrary ordaining of all the mysteries of life? Luther might have forgiven the monks had they confined themselves to sophistries. But mediaeval monks had nothing in common with our philosophers. They did not look for world-conceptions in books, and logical tournaments amused them only moderately. They threw themselves into the deeps of life, they experimented on themselves and their neighbours. They passed from mortification to licentious bacchanalia. They feared nothing, spared nothing. In a word, the Rome against which Luther arose had undertaken to build Babylon again, not with stones, but with human souls. Luther, horrified, withdrew, and with him half Europe was withdrawn. That is his positive merit. And Dostoevsky attacked Lutheranism, and pitied the old Catholicism and the breathless heights to which its "spiritual" children had risen. Wholesome morality and its support is not enough for Dostoevsky. All this is not "positive," it is only "protest." Whether I am believed or not, I will repeat that Vladimir Soloviov, who held that Dostoevsky was a prophet, is wrong, and that N. K. Mikhailovsky, who calls him a cruel talent and a grubber after buried treasure, is right. Dostoevsky grubs after buried treasure--no doubt about that. And, therefore, it would be more becoming in the younger generation that still marches under the flag of pious idealism if, instead of choosing him as a spiritual leader, they avoided the old sorcerer, in whom only those gifted with great shortsightedness or lack of experience in life could fail to see the dangerous man.

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It is boring and difficult to convince people, and after all, not necessary. It would be much better if every individual kept his own opinions. Unfortunately, it cannot be. Whether you like it or not, you have to admit the law of gravitation. Some people find it necessary to admit the origin of man from the monkey. In the empirical realm, however humiliating it may be, there are certain real, binding, universal truths against which no rebellion will avail. With what pleasure would we declare to a representative of science that fire does not burn, that rattlesnakes are not poisonous, that a fall from a high tower is perfectly agreeable, etc., etc., supposing he were obliged to prove to us the contrary. Unluckily the scientific person is free from the burden of proof: nature proves, and thoroughly. If nature, like metaphysics, set out to compel us through syllogisms or sermons to believe in her, how little she would get out of us. She is much more sagacious. Morality and logic she has left to Hegel and Spinoza, for herself she has taken a cudgel. Now then, try to argue against _this_! You will give in against your will. The cleverest of all the metaphysicians, Catholic inquisitors, imitated nature. They rarely tried the word, and trusted to the fire of faggots rather than of the heart. Had they only had more power, it would not be possible to find two people in the whole world disbelieving in the infallibility of the Pope. Metaphysical ideas, dreamily expecting to conquer the world by reasoned exposition, will never attain dominion. If they are bent on success, let them try more effective methods of convincing.

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_Evolution_.--In recent years we see more and more change in the philosophies of writers and even of non-literary people. The old men are beside themselves--such shiftiness seems indecent. After all, convictions are not gloves. But the young carelessly pass on from one idea to another. Irresolute men are somewhat timid, and although they abandon their former convictions they do not declare the change openly. Others, however, plainly announce, as if it were nothing, how far they now are from the beliefs they held six months ago. One even publishes whole volumes relating how he passed on from one philosophy to another, and then to a third. People see nothing alarming in that kind of "evolution." They believe it is in the ordering of things. But not so at all! The readiness to leave off one set of convictions in order to assume another set shows complete indifference to convictions altogether. Not for nothing do the old sound the alarm. But to us who have fought so long against all kinds of constancy, the levity of the young is a pleasant sight. They will don materialism, positivism, Kantianism, spiritualism, and so on, one after the other, till they realise that all theories, ideas and ideals are as of little consequence as the hoop-skirts and crinolines of our grandmothers. Then they will begin to live without ideals and pre-arranged purposes, without foresight, relying on chance and their own ready wit. This way, too, must be tried. Perhaps we shall do better by it.... Anyhow, it will be more fun.

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_Strength of will_.--Weakness and paralysis of the will, a very dangerous disease in our times, and in most other times, consists not in the absolute loss of desire, such as takes place in the very old, but in the loss of the capacity to translate desire into deed. A diseased will is often met in violently passionate men, so that the proverb--"Say I will not, not I cannot"--does not always hold good. Man often would, but cannot. And then the force of desire instead of moving to outward creation, works inwardly. This is justly considered the most dangerous effect of the weakening of the will. For inward working is destructive working. Man does not only, to put it scientifically, fail to adapt nature to his needs, but he loses his own power of adaptability to outward circumstances. The most ordinary doctor, or even anybody, decides that he has before him a pathological case which must be treated with care. The patient is of the same opinion, whilst he still hopes. But when the treatment has had no results, the doctor draws back and speaks of the inadequacy of his science. Then what is the patient to retire upon? It is disgusting to speak of an incurable disease. So he begins to think, think, think--all the time about things of which nobody thinks. He is gradually forgotten, and gradually he forgets everything--but first of all, that widespread truth which asserts that no judgments are valid save those that are accepted and universal. Not that he disputes the truth: he _forgets it_, and there is none to remind him. To him all his judgments seem valid and important. Of course he cannot advance the principle: let all men turn from the external world into themselves. But why advance a principle at all? One can simply say: I am indifferent to the destinies of the external world. I do not want to move mountains or turn rivers aside or rearrange the map of Europe. I don't even want to go to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes. I don't want _to do_ anything. I want to think that my inaction is the most important thing on earth, that any "disease" is better than health, and so on and so on without end. To what thought's will not a man abandoned by medicine and doctors sink down! His judgments are not binding on us, that is as clear as day. But are they uninteresting? And is that paralysis, that weakness of will, a disease only?

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_Death and metaphysics_.--A superficial observer knows that the best things in life are hard to attain. Some psychologists even consider that the chief beauty of the highest things consists in their unattainability. This is surely not true--yet there is a grain in it. The roads to good things are dangerous to travel. Is it because nature is so much poorer than we imagine, so she must lock up her blessings, or is there some greater meaning in it, that we have not guessed? For the fact is, the more alluring an end we have in view, the more risks and horrors we must undertake to get there. May we not also make a contrary suggestion: that behind every danger something good is hidden, and that therefore danger serves as an indication, a mark to guide us onwards, not as a warning, as we are taught to believe. To decide this would be to decide that behind death, the greatest of dangers, must lie the most promising things. It is as well not to speculate further. We had best stop lest we quarrel even with metaphysics. Traditional metaphysics has always been able to illumine our temporal existence with the reflected beams of eternity. Let us follow the example. Let us make no attempt to know the absolute. If you have discovered a comforting hypothesis, even in the upper transcendental air, drag it quickly to earth where labouring men forever await even an imaginary relief from their lot. We must make use of everything, even of death, to serve the ends of this life of ours.

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_The future_.--A clever, reasonable boy, accustomed to trust his common sense, read in a book for children a description of a shipwreck which occurred just as the passengers were eating their sweets at dessert. He was astonished to learn that everyone, women and children as well, who could give no assistance-whatever in saving the ship, left their dessert and rushed on deck with wailing and tears. Why wail, why rush about, why be stupidly agitated? The crew knew their business and would do all that could be done. If you are going to perish, perish you will, no matter how you scream. It seemed to the boy that if he had been on the ship he would just have gone on eating his sweets to the last moment. Justice should be done to this judicious and irreproachable opinion. There remained only a few minutes to live--would it not have been better to enjoy them? The logic is perfect, worthy of Aristotle. And it was found impossible to prove to the boy that he would have left his sweets, even his favourite sweets, under the same circumstances, and rushed, and screamed with the rest. Hence a moral--do not decide about the future. To-day common sense is uppermost, and sweets are your highest law. But to-morrow you will get rid of normality and sense, you will link on with nonsense and absurdity, and probably you will even get a taste for bitters. What do you think?

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A priori _synthetic judgments_.--Kant, as we know, found in mathematics and the natural sciences _a priori_ synthetic judgments. Was he right or wrong? Are the judgments he indicated _a priori_ or _a posteriori_? Anyhow, one thing is certain: they are not accepted as absolutely, but only as relatively indisputable. In metaphysics, where the only curious and important truths are hidden, the case is different. Kant was compelled to admit that just where metaphysics begin the capacity of our human reason to judge _a priori_ ends. But since we cannot dispense with metaphysical judgments, he proposed to substitute for them postulates. At the same time he admitted the optimistic presupposition that in the domain of the transcendental we shall find all that we miss in the world of phenomena. So that, because he could not invent a truly scientific metaphysics, he contrived to present us with a non-scientific sort. Which is to say, after many round-about journeys he brings his readers along the opposite way right back to the very spot from which he led them off. Surely non-scientific metaphysics existed before Kant: the mediaeval philosophers had plenty of phantasies and speculations, all supported by "moral" proofs. If Kant wanted to reform metaphysics, he should have got rid of its favourite method of obtaining truths through inferential "conclusions." Men are greedy, they want to learn much, and get their knowledge cheap. So they think that every truth they have paid for with experience and loss of energy entitles them to a few more truths gratis: or, in philosophic language, _a priori_, by deduction. They are not ashamed to speculate with a gift that has been given them. Instead of looking, listening, touching, _seeking_, they want to infer and conclude. Certainly if they could wring any secret out of nature, no matter by what means, cunning, impudence, fraud, we would forgive them--conquerors are not judged. But nothing comes of their "conclusions" save metaphysical systems and empty prattle. It is surely time to give up conclusions, and get truth _a posteriori_, as did Shakspeare, Goethe, Dostoevsky; that is, every time you want to know anything, go and look and find out. And if one is lazy, or horrified at a new experiment, let him train himself to look on ultimate questions with indifference, as the positivists do. But moral, ontological and such like arguments!--really, it is disgusting to talk about them. Every new experiment is interesting; but our conclusions, _i.e._, synthetic judgments _a priori,_ are mostly pompous lies, not worth the scrap of paper on which they are recorded.

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_General rules_.--People go to philosophers for general principles. And since philosophers are human, they are kept busy supplying the market with general principles. But what sense is there in them? None at all. Nature demands individual creative activity from us. Men won't understand this, so they wait forever for the ultimate truths from philosophy, which they will never get. Why should not every grown-up person be a creator, live in his own way at his own risk and have his own experience? Children and raw youths must go in leading strings. But adult people who want to feel the reins should be despised. They are cowards, and slothful: afraid to try, they eternally go to the wise for advice. And the wise do not hesitate to take the responsibility for the lives of others. They invent general rules, as if they had access to the sources of knowledge. What foolery! The wise are no wiser than the stupid--they have only more conceit and effrontery. Every intelligent man laughs in his soul at "bookish" views. And are not books the work of the wise? They are often extremely interesting--but only in so far as they do not contain general rules. Woe to him, who would build up his life according to Hegel, Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Schiller, or Dostoevsky. He must read them, but he must have sense, a mind of his own to live with. Those who have tried to live according to theories from books have found this out. At the best, their efforts produced banality. There is no alternative. Whether man likes or not he will at last have to realise that cliches are worthless, and that he must live from himself. There are no all-binding, universal judgments--let us manage with non-binding, non-universal ones. Only professors will suffer for it....

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